The US is also one of the few countries that collects taxes on you if you're a citizen living abroad. They're paying taxes twice. Once to their resident country and once to the US. Hence why if you're living abroad you would renounce citizenship: to save that tax money.

Since I refuse to click the link and support the derp-arts, I will assume that most of those actually renouncing citizenship are doing so for a different set of legal principles (like being the chief shareholder of several companies on three continents or getting around Chinese or Russian rules for foreigners by becoming a citizen there) rather than an outright desire to leave the US.

It's also not uncommon to marry someone from another country and emigrate to there.

The US is one of the few countries in the world that follows your income. If you live and work in a foreign country 100%, you pay that country's taxes AND (after an exclusion), US taxes. So you are doubly taxed, in other words.

On the contrary, a Canadian working in the US (for example) pays NO Canadian taxes. Only US ones.

The US now also taxes your savings if you are living outside the US and have savings there. Failure to report has a stiff fine.

Those expats are paying taxes in America and the country they currently reside. By renouncing US citizenship, they only pay the taxes of the country of residence and not also the US.

That's what I came to say, If you plan on living out the rest of your life in another country why continue to pay US taxes.

Plus It depends on how you make your money, In Switzerland which the article mentions the capital gains tax is zero. So if you are retired and living off capital gains you would be smarter than subby to move there.

The ex-pat reporting requirements are onerous. If you have any kind of complex business and are living offshore, you must get a lawyer to do your taxes at a considerable expense. Otherwise you risk forfeiture of assets or worse. So thank Congress for making crappy laws.

I remember hearing about this being related to changes in filing requirements. People like a American-Swedish mother who moved there to marry 20 years ago being levied that double taxation and facing a bigger CPA bill than tax bill.

Adss2009:The US is also one of the few countries that collects taxes on you if you're a citizen living abroad. They're paying taxes twice. Once to their resident country and once to the US. Hence why if you're living abroad you would renounce citizenship: to save that tax money.

Marcus Aurelius:The ex-pat reporting requirements are onerous. If you have any kind of complex business and are living offshore, you must get a lawyer to do your taxes at a considerable expense. Otherwise you risk forfeiture of assets or worse. So thank Congress for making crappy laws.

if it weren't for crappy laws we wouldn't have any laws at all, and it would be just like Somalia here.you don't want to live in Somalia do you?

Switzerland, the country where singer Tina Turner (pictured) is now a citizen after giving up her U.S. citizenship this past April, collects about 30 percent of its GDP in taxes, low for Europe, but twice as high as in America

Any tax-motivated renunciation is more about avoiding the bizarrely asinine global taxation of the USA and the even-more-asinine and onerous reporting requirements.

These people are by and large already living overseas and paying taxes in some other jurisdiction.

And who gives a flying fark about "taxes measured the traditional way, as percentage of Gross Domestic Product," in selected nations. When making a personal judgment about whether to renounce citizenship, if you are considering it for tax reasons, what matters is your PERSONAL tax situation.

TFA is just farking stupid.

/and there are plenty of other reasons that someone might have for renouncing citizenship, so the gist of TFA is baseless speculation in the first place

I live overseas (I am a citizen of both the US and Australia). I pay taxes in Australia as my "tax home" as per US law and I file every year with Uncle Sam. My tax bill to the US government is always zero dollars. Why? Simple: Because I already pay more tax here in Australia than the US government would take.

It's not paying taxes that is a problem for people, because the tax burden isn't actually there - it's the legal requirements for filing.

In a nutshell, they've made it so difficult that you need to engage an expensive accountant just to do personal income tax filing and god help you if you own a business overseas, you're looking at having to lawyer up every year around tax time.

So yeah, I am thinking of handing in my passport, not because of the tax burden, but because they have made it such a pain in the ass. For other people, they 2-4k a year they have to spend on accountants otherwise is just too much cost for them to bear and it makes sense for them to basically wash their hands of the US, otherwise they have to not file (and break the law) or not eat.

Not everyone who lives overseas is super rich - most people I know who are ex-pats hold down normal jobs, or are school teachers.

Switzerland, the country where singer Tina Turner (pictured) is now a citizen after giving up her U.S. citizenship this past April, collects about 30 percent of its GDP in taxes, low for Europe, but twice as high as in America

Monkeyfark Ridiculous:Any tax-motivated renunciation is more about avoiding the bizarrely asinine global taxation of the USA and the even-more-asinine and onerous reporting requirements.

These people are by and large already living overseas and paying taxes in some other jurisdiction.

And who gives a flying fark about "taxes measured the traditional way, as percentage of Gross Domestic Product," in selected nations. When making a personal judgment about whether to renounce citizenship, if you are considering it for tax reasons, what matters is your PERSONAL tax situation.

TFA is just farking stupid.

/and there are plenty of other reasons that someone might have for renouncing citizenship, so the gist of TFA is baseless speculation in the first place

Adss2009:The US is also one of the few countries that collects taxes on you if you're a citizen living abroad. They're paying taxes twice. Once to their resident country and once to the US. Hence why if you're living abroad you would renounce citizenship: to save that tax money.

Marcus Aurelius:The ex-pat reporting requirements are onerous. If you have any kind of complex business and are living offshore, you must get a lawyer to do your taxes at a considerable expense. Otherwise you risk forfeiture of assets or worse. So thank Congress for making crappy laws.

This is exactly the reasons why people renounce their citizenship. Most people don't pay taxes in both countries but it's the needing to file and the penalties levied and potential assets seized that are making people do this.

Switzerland, the country where singer Tina Turner (pictured) is now a citizen after giving up her U.S. citizenship this past April, collects about 30 percent of its GDP in taxes, low for Europe, but twice as high as in America

Whats GDP got to do - got to do with it?

Basically, I can go collect taxes from you, I can collect corporate taxes and let them pass it on in higher prices, I can collect fees, I can collect student loan interest payments (And isn't this like a $100 Billion industry for the federal government at this point?), but at a certain point, the tax man's gonna get his money.

It's basically a decent way of saying "How much more expensive is my life because of the tax man?"

Dinjiin:Monkeyfark Ridiculous: Any tax-motivated renunciation is more about avoiding the bizarrely asinine global taxation of the USA and the even-more-asinine and onerous reporting requirements.

I've read that it requires a very specialized tax accountant to prepare income returns for expats overseas. It isn't uncommon to pay €500+ for the service. So it is an expensive PITA.

If you're only making €50,000 or less a year, it just doesn't make sense to keep your citizenship if you don't plan on moving back.

Yeah, definitely an expensive PITA , especially if there's any financial complexity at all to your life. It isn't even just the income, it's any overseas bank account or investment or business you're involved in, all sorts of madness. You end up reporting the same farking thing on four different forms when there's no real reason for the US to care about it in the first place. It has gotten to the point where some banks etc won't even deal with American expats because then the IRS is trying to climb up THEIR asses too.

Whether it makes sense to keep citizenship, though...that's about more than next year's IRS bullshiat.

I live overseas (I am a citizen of both the US and Australia). I pay taxes in Australia as my "tax home" as per US law and I file every year with Uncle Sam. My tax bill to the US government is always zero dollars. Why? Simple: Because I already pay more tax here in Australia than the US government would take.

It's not paying taxes that is a problem for people, because the tax burden isn't actually there - it's the legal requirements for filing.

In a nutshell, they've made it so difficult that you need to engage an expensive accountant just to do personal income tax filing and god help you if you own a business overseas, you're looking at having to lawyer up every year around tax time.

So yeah, I am thinking of handing in my passport, not because of the tax burden, but because they have made it such a pain in the ass. For other people, they 2-4k a year they have to spend on accountants otherwise is just too much cost for them to bear and it makes sense for them to basically wash their hands of the US, otherwise they have to not file (and break the law) or not eat.

Not everyone who lives overseas is super rich - most people I know who are ex-pats hold down normal jobs, or are school teachers.

You got that right. I am an American living in Canada and its this gigantic pain in the ass that the tax law is that we have to have a high priced accountant to file every year even though I have never had to pay a cent in taxes. And last year the IRS wanted access to all Canadian bank accounts for snooping reasons. They wanted to seize assets for every year missed in filing. The Canadian government shouted them down for that.

But here's the run. My daughter is autistic and she's supposed to file when she turns 18. WTF is that about. People who moved here when they were 4 years old are suddenly running into trouble because they've never filed. The IRS is too intrusive, too draconian yet totally lousy at going after the mega swindlers, sheep corporations and off shore tax dodgers.

Those expats are paying taxes in America and the country they currently reside. By renouncing US citizenship, they only pay the taxes of the country of residence and not also the US.

That. It's a good deal on an individual level if you don't particularly plan to move back to the US. Why pay the membership fee if you're never going back to the gym?

Weeelll... you're still kinda receiving benefits from your tax dollars. When you're in some foreign jail on trumped up political charges, it's good to know the American Embassy's phone number is still connected. Need saving from some pirates, or wrecked your sailboat on the high seas? That U.S. Coast Guard cutter or Navy vessel appears mighty friendly.

what a stupid farking whiny article written by either an axe grinding douche or ill informed assmaster.

and before i rant on the general topic, lets take the facebook guy: he was not born american and became american, and lived all over. his footprint was always international, and what he did makes total freakin' sense.

but to the article in general:

only in the US do you have the wonderful privilege of being taxed based on yoru citizenship, not on your residence or place of work. virtually no country in the world does this aside from the US.

not only that, but because of the new FATCA requirements that Washington rammed down the throats of world's banks, banks abroad have to submit financial information on US citizens to washington! so most banks abroad just dont want to do business with US clients any more, which really farks expats who are working abroad. its not just the ueber rich trying to escape the tax man; its the normal dudes working abroad who suddenly are having real trouble finding a bank to give them a mortgage or do business with them because they're too expensive of a client ot serve since many financial institutions dont have the ability to comply with the FATCA requirements.

and "that the US has lower tax rates than other countries"; wtf does that have to do with anything? it freakin' sucks you have to file 2ce! it freakin' sucks the US is the only country in the west to demand their citizens abroad file at all! and if you pay taxes twice, that double farkin sucks, since you sure as hell arent seeing those tax dollars at work in your community are you.

fark fatca and the rest of those laws which are nothing more than taxation without representation, and making life harder for those of us who've left the US to persue dreams elsewhere.

Dinjiin:Monkeyfark Ridiculous: Any tax-motivated renunciation is more about avoiding the bizarrely asinine global taxation of the USA and the even-more-asinine and onerous reporting requirements.

I've read that it requires a very specialized tax accountant to prepare income returns for expats overseas. It isn't uncommon to pay €500+ for the service. So it is an expensive PITA.

If you're only making €50,000 or less a year, it just doesn't make sense to keep your citizenship if you don't plan on moving back.

when i lived in switzerland i continued to do my taxes as i've always done them: with turbo tax. if you're just a normal worker in a foreign country and dont have holdings all over, a complicated portfolio, real estate back in the us etc its not thaaaat hard to file... its just freakin' annoying as hell.

the real problem is the financial instituions just took a look at th erequirements washington pushed on them and said "welp, judging on how much it'll cost to make the changes necessary to our systems to comply with these requirements, its more cost effective to just terminate the relationship with all our US clients."

people are giving their citizenship to be able to have relationships with their local financial institutions more than they are fleeing the tax man, i'd reckon.

I can't say I blame these people. I'm not rich, I'm most definitely not a conservative, and I don't have any huge issue with Obama, I just wouldn't be able to comply with the current system as well as function in another country. I'd strongly consider renouncing my citizenship as well if I lived overseas. It's really as simple as that.

Ours is the only country that does this to it's expats. Love it or leave it... if the latter, be sure to keep giving us money to fund our paranoid police state because Freedom isn't Free!

"Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $16,351 this year, up 4 percent from last year, with workers on average paying $4,565 towards the cost of their coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey."

So that's about $21,000 a year for health insurance per family. If we added that $21,000 to our tax bill so that our new "tax" included the cost of socialized medicine, what would our tax rate be then, and how would it compare to places like the UK or Sweden?